One Aspect Of Withdrawing From Afghanistan

On Wednesday Ro Khanna was one of the congressional progressives-- Ted Lieu was another-- happy to see Trump announce he was withdrawing American troops from Syria. Ted: "I strongly agree with the President’s decision to withdraw US troops from Syria. Congress never authorized the US to go to war in Syria. While going after terrorists is authorized, both the Obama and Trump Administrations went far beyond the congressionally authorized use of force against terrorists. Moreover, neither Administration had a strategy for Syria. Neither Administration could articulate why American troops were fighting in Syria, what the desired end state should be, nor how we would achieve it. I repeatedly criticized both Administrations for not having a strategy and for taking war actions not authorized by Congress. I am pleased that this unauthorized and failed executive branch war in Syria will finally come to an end."

Ro Khanna called the withdrawal "a good first step toward ending our foreign policy of interventionism and went on to let Trump know we also need to "End U.S. support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, Repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force."

Howard Dean was not impressed and he used the classic bullshit argument that liberals-who-like-war have been using as an excuse to stay in Afghanistan for way over a decade:

His dishonest bullshit is not being solved by American military forces deployed in Afghanistan. I've been having this argument with members of Congress-- often well-intentioned friends of mine-- for... I don't know how many years. When I first got to Afghanistan in 1969, having driven in my VW van from London, my strongest immediate thought-- other than how unbelievably strong the hash is-- was that no matter how far I had traveled in space I had traveled much further in time-- straight backward. I was thousands of miles from my parents' home in Brooklyn... and what felt like as many thousands of years back in time. I remember writing to a friend that I was feeling like I was living in the Bible (Old Testament).

Things have changed a little since then. I lived in a "village" (two family compounds off a barely demarcated dirt track) for a winter up in the Hindu Kush where no one had ever heard of the United States (and no one had ever experienced electricity). I'm not sure if they've experienced electricity some 4 decades later but I'd bet you they've heard of the United States.

When you travel to, let's say "exotic" places like Afghanistan, you're better off leaving your cultural judgments in check. There's no way to reasonably compare our cultural standards to the ones that govern their lives. I got used to the concept, for example, of two good cleanings a year-- one in the spring and one in the fall, something very different from the swim, jacuzzi, steam bath and shower I do in some combination everyday here in L.A. Better to just roll with the punches.

You don't ever see the womenfolk in Afghanistan. My closest friend in the Hindu Kush sojourn got married while I was there and I lived in his house and spent virtually all of my time with him for several months. Everyone used to joke that we were brothers. I never saw the girl he married, not once. In the same house! Nor was she-- or his mother or sisters-- at the wedding. Well, that isn't exactly accurate. They had their own party in the women's part of the house. But it wasn't exactly separate-but-equal; just separate.

Big steaming platters of rice with meat and vegetables were brought out by male servants-- actually slaves but no one called them that-- and everyone dug in with their fingers, food rolling down everyone's beards back onto the platters. Yum, yum. When the men were done eating, the leftovers were fed to the servants and dogs, although I don't remember in what order, and then what was left from that was sent to the women. Meanwhile we had song and dance-- the young boys. There was a troupe of them from somewhere who are hired to entertain at parties. They looked like they were between 12 and 16 and they were wearing women's dancing clothes, more or less; they all had big heavy farmer boots on. And they all had their eyes smeared with kohl and some kind of rouge substitute. Everyone was hootin' and hollerin' when they were dancing, kind of alluringly, truth be told. No one was drunk but everyone-- every single person-- was high on hash. At one point the groom's grandfather suddenly jumped up-- apparently unable to restrain himself for another second-- grabbed the youngest, smallest bacha and dragged him behind a building and raped him.

It was gruesome to hear... but it didn't seem to put any kind of a damper on the party at all. The rest of the troupe kept dancing and everyone else just ignored the commotion and just enjoyed the festivities. It's part of their culture. Ten minutes later grandpa and the 12 year old came back from around the building, straightening their clothes. The bacha seemed to have felt his dignity was affronted but he jumped right back into the line and danced away the rest of the evening as though nothing had happened. I'm not sure what happened afterwards but from what I heard, all the boys were raped (more or less).

And although these people definitely have heard of America now, they still enjoy a little bacha bazi as part of their cultural heritage, especially the wealthy men, although wealth is a relative thing and whomever is exercising power gets himself a young bacha or two (or a half dozen) to keep as sex slaves. Frontline did a special on the phenomena by journalist Najibullah Qurasishi. You may find it difficult to watch but it will certainly give you an idea about a not uncommon aspect of Afghanistan, a country the U.S. military is occupying for no apparent purpose and with no apparent positive effect.



The radical fundamentalists in Afghanistan-- we generally refer to them as The Taliban these days-- have no intention of changing their society to meet despised Western mores. I've argued with many women allies about what the U.S. can and cannot accomplish in Afghanistan. Each of them is adamant that a legitimate goal of U.S. policy towards that country should be the emancipation of women. Maybe it should, but it's not going to happen. I remember waking up one morning after one of those arguments and the first thing I saw on my TV screen was a story about how some Talibs had burned down a girls' school. They don't want their girls educated. They want them barefoot and pregnant (but not really barefoot because seeing their naked skin would be a satanic temptation and they might have to stone the woman to death for such an infraction). That was a decade ago, with U.S. troops occupying the country--as they still are.

The same kind of attack on a girl's school happened the week before in tribal Northwest Pakistan, the part the fundamentalists control. Girls in school is subversive to what they see as their way of life. Well-meaning Americans want to change that. In 2010 an issue of Stars And Stripes in a report from Afghanistan, claimed the country is working toward some semblance of gender equality.

In this remote Afghan village, the distance between the school and the compound of its most powerful resident is 100 yards, and thousands of years.

At the school, about 15 girls attend classes alongside dozens of boys thanks to the relative security of the area, which means the Taliban cannot act on its opposition to the education of females, a conviction that has led to the burning or bombing of hundreds of schools in recent years.

Down the road, at the home of the affable Sahib Jan-- the local Afghan Highway Police commander and most respected village elder-- the local women are kept out of sight of visiting U.S. soldiers, preparing a meal for men with whom they are not allowed to eat. Female soldiers are not even welcome to sit in on a meeting of the military contingent, Jan and his subordinates.

“To me, the girls and the boys are the same,” Jan said through an interpreter during the meeting. “We would like to provide an education for both of them,” although Jan would prefer that happen in separate schools, or separate classrooms. “They can become whatever they want to when they grow up.”

That said, when boys are born, “there is celebration,” he said. “When a daughter is born, we are not that happy.”

While Jan says the genders are equal, his views on what equal means are quite different from the Western way: “In our culture, men and women are not supposed to be together.”

That is just one example of the religious, moral and cultural differences that U.S. and coalition officials must accept as they continue their mission in Afghanistan-- that no matter how much Western-style government, political and military influence they wield here, anything approaching equality for women is still generations away-- if it happens at all.

“It saddens me to go to a culture and know, at this point in time, they’re not afforded the same rights,” said Army Spc. Tiffany Hall-- a member of the Female Engagement Team for the 4th Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment’s Headquarters Troop.

“Maybe one day we’ll get there, but I know that day is not today. We’re doing multiple things to help the community ... better its living situation and get out from under the Taliban foothold. Until we can help that aspect first, we can’t concentrate on getting the equal rights that we would want.

“We have to do one step at a time. It’s a process.”

Does the process end? In a thousand years will the Afghan women have lives like we want them to? And the bachas too?